Job's want of knowledge of his own heart and of God

But the depths of Job's heart were not yet reached, and to do
this was the purpose of God, whatever Satan's thoughts may have
been. Job did not know himself, and up to this time, with all his
piety, he had never been in the presence of God. How often it is
the case that even throughout a long life of piety the conscience
has never been really set before God! Hence peace, such peace as
cannot be shaken, and real liberty, are not known as yet. There is
a desire after God, there is the new nature; the attraction of His
grace has been felt: nevertheless God and His love, as it really
is, are not known. If Satan is foiled (the grace of God having
kept Job's heart from murmuring) God has yet His own work to
accomplish. That which the tempest that Satan had raised against
Job failed in doing, is brought about by the sympathy of his
friends. Poor heart of man! The uprightness and even the patience
of Job had been manifested, and Satan had no more to say. But God
alone can search out what the heart really is before Him; and the
absence of all self-will, perfect agreement with the will of God,
absolute submission like that of Christ, these things God alone
could test, and thus lay bare the nothingness of man's heart
before Him. God did this with Job; revealing at the same time that
He acts in grace in these cases for the good of the soul which He
loves.

Job's self-satisfaction: the pride of his heart

If we compare the language of the Spirit of Christ in the
Psalms, we shall often find the appreciation of circumstances
expressed in almost identical terms; but instead of bitter
complaints and reproaches addressed to God, we find the submission
of a heart which acknowledges that God is perfect in all His
ways. Job was upright, but he began to make this his
righteousness; which evidently proves that he had never been
really in the presence of God. The consequence of this was that,
although he reasoned more correctly than his friends, and shewed a
heart that felt really far more than they what God was, he
attributed injustice to God and a desire to harass him without
cause (see chap. 19; 23: 3, 13; 13: 15 -- 18; 16: 12). We find
also in chapter 29 that his heart had dwelt upon his upright and
benevolent walk with complacency, commending himself, and feeding
his self-love with it. "When the eye saw me it gave witness
to me." God was bringing him to say, "Now mine eye seeth
Thee and I abhor myself." It is with these chapters (29, 30,
31), which express his good opinion of himself, that Job ends his
discourse; he had told his whole heart out. He was self-satisfied:
the grace of God had wrought and in a lovely way in him; but the
present effect through the treacherousness of the human heart, and
not being in God's presence which detects it, was to make him
lovely in his own eyes If (chap. 9) he confesses man's iniquity
(for who can deny it; and especially what converted men?), it is
in bitterness of spirit, because it is useless to attempt being
just with such a God. Chapter 6, as well as the whole of his
discourse, proves that, whether it was the pride of his heart
which could not bear to be found in such a state by those who had
known his greatness, a state which pride would have borne in
stubbornness alone, or sympathy which, in weakening that had left
him to the full sense of it, it was the presence and the language
of his friends that was the means of bringing out all that was in
his heart. We see also in chapter 30 that the pride of his heart
was detected.